Nicholas Barry

My mom and I kayaked recently from the charming little town of Clarksburg, and she related a frustrating exchange with a small business there.

Usually we'll drop off a car at the take-out point, then launch some ways up the river. But there is only one good put-in point in the area. You have to kayak upriver first, so when you tire out you have an easy ride back to the put-in point. If you start downriver, by the time you're ready to turn around you may have a much harder trip upstream than you had anticipated.

My mom, Camilla, had noticed a private lagoon on a previous trip. "I told them they should consider letting people pay for day usage of the lagoon as a put-in point," she told me as we paddled up the river. "The lagoon is right across from the town store, and people could buy lunch there. People would be happy to pay for day use!" My mom is an entrepreneur, and is always thinking of things like this.

"Let me guess," I told her. "They brushed you off?"

Yes, they had brushed her off. They told her that there was already a put-in point down the road. "But it's not anywhere near the store," she protested to me. It didn't make any sense to either of us that the lagoon wouldn't even be interested in considering a new way to make money, and potentially gain new long-term customers.

Actually, it did make sense to us - lots of people and organizations aren't good at considering new ways of doing things. I can understand that people sometimes have good reasons for not making what may appear to be an "obvious" improvement. But most frequently when people reject suggestions it seems to be because they're not really willing to even consider changing the way they do things.

Do you have ideas for getting organizations to consider suggestions that might improve the way they do business, or accomplish their mission? I'm thinking not only of informal suggestions like the lagoon suggestion, but also of the suggestions made by consultants organizations hire. Having spoken to a few friends who consult, I know that getting organizations to follow through on recommendations can be difficult - and if they don't take the recommendations, they're likely to feel that the consultant was a waste of their money.

So how do you prod, coax, or persuade organizations to make changes when the changes are in their own interest?